This was written by my nephew, Brian Schmid - a lifelong Auroran - and taken from a Tumblr page unedited. Below it is a link for photos he took that day (except for the first one):
One Sweet Day: The Aurora VigilThe city of Aurora has a rather peculiar layout. Thanks to its suburban origins it doesn’t really have an traditional cityscape or a central business district; it functions more as one giant, sprawling neighborhood of some 330,000. Dispositionally it breaks down into working-class north Aurora and the more affluent southern area. In between those two is just regular old Aurora, my Aurora, a melting pot even in the context of one of the great melting-pot areas of the American West.
The city of Aurora was holding a vigil at the Municipal Building on Alameda Avenue, as close to a central point as this city has, surrounded by a courthouse, a police station, a large library, a history museum and a large percentage of Aurora’s green foliage (as well as being within eye’s view of the Aurora Mall and the Century 16 theater). It was here that the melting pot of melting pots was poured, as north, south and central Aurora came together en masse. When I arrived maybe ten minutes after the scheduled start of the vigil, cars had lined every street, neighborhood, parking lot and open space in every direction that I ended up having to park at a church a good two miles from the event, and I had never been prouder to walk.
Tattoo sleeves and pierced faces, tucked-in polos and khaki pants, leather vests and sleeveless flag t-shirts, Dickies and a wifebeater, Boy Scout merit badges and free water bottles; everyone was gathered together under the shadow of the Municipal. As I’ve said, Aurora isn’t a particularly demonstrative, publicly intimate place, and to outsiders a good portion of the crowd had a casualness to their demeanor that probably seemed disrespectful. But for Aurora, showing up constituted a massive statement, every present body signing the same unspoken contract: we are here for each other, and together as one. Everyone had someone to hug, though: I ran into a number of people I hadn’t seen in years, and the few I had planned to meet, I simply ran into as I arrived, in an almost-scheduled successive fashion.
I couldn’t see the stage, as the lawn was packed with people, but the speakers carried the audio across the area, so I decided to wander to a makeshift memorial put up in a dirt field across the street. Even here, no one was making much of a scene; most instead choosing to quietly contemplate the emotions that we all understood. Many, mostly teenage girls, knelt down to write well-wishes and remembrances on a series of large posterboards, and one man held a waist-high sign referencing the Westboro Baptist Church, the small extreme sect that pickets emotional scenes of death with incendiary signs.
I was intrigued as to whether they had shown up as they said they would. Looking around, I saw Bloods, I saw cholos, I saw bikers from all manner of groups, and I noticed that nobody was getting their asses beaten into the ground, so Westboro must not be present. Aurora doesn’t show many outwards displays of emotion, but if you [censored] with people’s people, the reaction will be swift and it will be unmerciful. Westboro loves to start [censored] in places where people get upset, but apparently even they realized carrying out this particular protest would perhaps not end well for them and theirs. Score another for Aurora.
The mall parking lot had been filled up, allowing people to walk closely to the Century and take pictures, separated by a frontage road that I despised every time I drove it, with its random tributaries and constant stream of traffic coming from every direction. As I knelt down beside a smattering of flowers and cards, I never thought I’d be so sad to have that road empty and closed.
Back to the Municipal lawn, the developers had been handing out candles, and being a city that loves their lighters, the crowd lit them up and many bowed their heads as a woman led the crowd through “Amazing Grace”. In a surprisingly ostentatious showing, hundreds of people formed a large circle, and a man with a sign with the words “FREE HUGS” on it wandered into the center. As the prayer concluded, a good number of that circle rushed the man with squeals of glee, chanting for Jesus, and chanting for Aurora.
The particular group of friends I was with are unusually forward and theatrical for most of Aurora’s populace. Walking back towards their car at the mall, I was reminded of the last time I had been to the Century 16, for a midnight showing of The Avengers back in May,where everyone I was currently traipsing through dirt with had dressed up as characters in the film. I chose to distance myself from their showy display, as they were the only people in costume in the building, and I instead prefer to blend back into the fabric of Aurora. As it happened, the costumed brigade had tickets to Theater 8, and my equally un-bedecked friend and I instead had tickets to the now-infamous Theater 9.
I was snapped out of my reminiscences by a number of things: my friends had managed to cajole an older woman in a baggy orange t-shirt to give us all hugs as they screamed their love for Aurora. Many others invited to join the howl declined, but their eyes betrayed the fact that they wholeheartedly agreed. Increasing the cinematic nature of the scene, a clear day abruptly gave way to a pouring rainstorm, with a wicked lightning storm remaining far-off on the horizon, as if Mother Nature politely waited until festivities were complete before hitting us with precipitation, and decided to hold off on the electricity for a while as a show of respect.
The lights to the Century 16 are on tonight, seemingly brighter than ever before. Its illumination feels like righteous defiance, a middle finger to everyone who dares try to disrupt our regular routine. Just then, a police officer switched on his siren and raced away from the scene, because life never stops, and people never stop, and Aurora never stops. We have gangs and we have gangsters, but I’ve never had an issue with them or anyone else, because pretty much across the board, they don’t bother you if you don’t bother them. Aurora is constantly demonized because we include all these “undesirables” in our number, but these are just people, with families, and friends, and hobbies. They know the deal, and they’re just trying to live like everybody else.
This is life. This is Aurora. I wouldn’t have it any other way.
Brian Schmid
Aurora, CO
Vigil photos:
http://schmanthonyp.tumblr.com/
